A joint biography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft set against the rise of muckraking journalism at McClure's Magazine, tracing their friendship, political rupture, and the reform-era alliance between the presidency and the press.
Books mentioned in The Bully Pulpit (28)
Progress and Poverty by Henry George: “Though he already had read Henry George's Progress and Poverty, the book's remedy—a single tax on land—was “anathema” to his father.”
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt: “Indeed, Roosevelt's Autobiography, written three decades later, failed even to recognize that his first wife had ever lived. / “This trip,” he wrote in An Autobiography, “formed a really useful part of my education.””
Foxe's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe: “For a child whose family possessed a scant three works—the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and Foxe's Book of Martyrs—the experience of “opening those boxes...””
Lycidas by John Milton: “She could memorize and recite numerous poems, including John Milton's Lycidas in its entirety, and was able to quote extensively from Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other Romantic poets.”
Russia by Donald Mackenzie Wallace: “For the session on the French Revolution, Will read Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, a History; when the topic was Russia, he read Donald MacKenzie's Russia.”
The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle: “For the session on the French Revolution, Will read Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, a History.”
As You Like It by William Shakespeare: “To-day a sentry on post was reading ‘As You Like It,’ and whenever I go down the line half the men want to know who won the boat race.”
A Modern Instance by William Dean Howells: “There he first encountered the new literature of realism through the serialization of William Dean Howells's A Modern Instance, the same novel McClure had devoured at John Phillips's home.”
Wealth Against Commonwealth by Henry Demarest Lloyd: “By early September 1901, Ida Tarbell had read everything from articles extolling the growth of trusts to Wealth Against Commonwealth, Henry Demarest Lloyd's passionate diatribe against monopolies.”
Their Wedding Journey by William Dean Howells: “We finished Their Wedding Journey by Howells and have begun The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.”
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: “From its very first sentence—“Happy families are all alike...”—Tolstoy's Anna Karenina confronted Theodore in an intensely personal fashion and his comments upon it illuminate his own nature more brightly than Tolstoy's novel.”
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Edith's diffident and beseeching tone disappears the moment she turns to literature, whether expressing her fascination with Coleridge's Kubla Khan or noting the “digging” required to excavate meaning from Browning's poems.”
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens: “alluding to the irrepressible servant in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit who sought out all manner of obstacles to surmount and miseries to transcend, and yet maintained a joyful aplomb.”
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot: “We finished Their Wedding Journey by Howells and have begun The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.”
The Octopus by Frank Norris: “The first book, to be called The Octopus, would center on an actual incident in the San Joaquin Valley, where scores of local farmers, dispossessed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, had engaged in a violent altercation.”
The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens by Lincoln Steffens: ““It was all breathless and sudden,” Steffens recalled in The Autobiography, “but Riis and I were soon describing the situation to him...””
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: “The Jungle tells the story of the young couple and their extended family as they immigrate to Chicago in pursuit of plentiful jobs, decent wages, and the fulfillment of the American dream.”
The History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida M. Tarbell: “Tarbell's Standard Oil series eventually stretched over a three-year period; Steffens's studies of corrupt political machines...generated fourteen articles and two books.”
The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain: “After midnight, he retired to an apartment on a floor above the magazine's offices to read “masses of manuscripts,” including portions of an autobiography by Mark Twain which his syndicate had agreed to publish.”
The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens: “When the articles were collected into the book entitled The Shame of the Cities, Steffens was hailed as a moral prophet come to save the republic from sin.”
The Tariff in Our Times by Ida M. Tarbell: “Tarbell's six-part series, “The Tariff in Our Times,” ran from December 1906 through June 1907, with three additional installments published two years later.”
The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt: “As a senior at Harvard, he had embarked on a project that would become his first published work, The Naval War of 1812.”
The Promise of American Life by Herbert Croly: “The New Republic editor Herbert Croly, whose recent book, The Promise of American Life, had attracted Roosevelt's attention.”
The Quality of Mercy by William Dean Howells: “The McClure syndicate serialized The Quality of Mercy, a novel by the controversial champion of realism, William Dean Howells.”
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith: “Aboard ship, they read aloud from Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and the collected poems of Coleridge and Shelley in preparation for their visit to the English countryside.”
A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman: “He published early stories by Damon Runyan and Joseph Conrad, introduced A. E. Housman's Shropshire Lad to the American public, and provided a forum for the new work of William Butler Yeats and Moira O'Neill.”
La Follette's Autobiography by Robert M. La Follette Sr.: “Earlier that fall, The American Magazine had begun publishing a ten-part series by the Wisconsin senator entitled “The Autobiography of an Insurgent,” written with the assistance of Ray Baker—later expanded into La Follette's Autobiography.”
Dracula by Bram Stoker: “including a dinner at the Vagabondia with a circle of illustrious writers and an evening of theatre in the box of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.”